Wells may include downhole tubing that defines a tubing conduit and extends within a wellbore. Wellbore plungers may be conveyed within the tubing conduit, such as to provide artificial lift for the well, to clean the tubing conduit, and/or to remove corrosion and/or deposits from a region of the downhole tubing that defines the tubing conduit.
Downhole tubing generally is metallic and conventional wellbore plungers generally are metallic and have cylindrical forms. In some applications, fluids present within the wellbore may corrode metallic downhole tubing, which may result in fluid leaks and/or in loss of integrity of the metallic downhole tubing. To mitigate this issue, internal plastic coated (IPC) downhole tubing has been utilized. IPC downhole tubing includes a metallic tube that is internally coated with a layer of polymer, or plastic. The presence of the coating decreases a potential for corrosion of the IPC downhole tubing, thereby increasing a service life of a well that includes the IPC downhole tubing and/or decreasing a need for, or a frequency of, workovers that might be utilized to repair and/or replace corroded downhole tubing.
While IPC downhole tubing may be more resistant to corrosion when compared to metallic downhole tubing that does not include the internal polymer coating, conventional wellbore plungers may wear and/or damage the internal polymer coating, thereby decreasing a service life of the IPC downhole tubing. Because of this fact, wellbore operations that utilize conventional wellbore plungers, such as artificial lift operations and/or cleaning operations, may not be performed, or may be performed with limited frequency, in IPC downhole tubing.
It may be desirable to perform artificial lift and/or cleaning operations in wells that include IPC downhole tubing and/or to perform such operations at frequencies that are incompatible with conventional wellbore plungers due to coating wear and/or damage effects. Thus, there exists a need for wellbore plungers with non-metallic tubing-contacting surfaces and/or for wells that include the wellbore plungers.